Savvis, Inc. (SVVS) announced plans for a significant expansion to its Savvis NJ2 data center in Weehawken, N.J., citing growing customer demand for proximity hosting and low latency connectivity to major financial exchanges. Savvis has leased space adjacent to Savvis NJ2 that will add approximately 105,000 square feet of raised floor for the deployment of high-performance hosting for the financial services industry. Savvis said the expanded facility "creates a powerful financial data center complex" in its most active market.

"The demand in the marketplace for financial IT infrastructure continues to grow as companies outsource to trusted providers," said Phil Koen, Chief Executive Officer of Savvis. "Today’s news creates a strong financial data center complex with two of our state-of-the-art facilities making Savvis the destination of choice for financial services companies."

Savvis said the first phase of the new NJ2X facility would feature 35,000 square feet of raised floor space and be completed by the second quarter of 2010. The expansion space includes room for another 70,000 square feet of raised floor. Direct fiber connections between buildings will allow customers to host trading applications via Savvis Proximity Hosting solutions.

Savvis said it expects to spend $10 million on building out the new space in 2009, which is reflected in existing financial guidance for the full year. The company expects to spend another $12 million in 2010.

Exchanges Anchor The Offering
The Savvis NJ2 data center houses servers for several major exchanges. Proximity Hosting is Savvis’ “ultra-low latency” offering, in which customer equipment is located adjacent to the exchanges’ servers within the Weehawken data center, eliminating any lag created by distance.

Proximity hosting has become popular with hedge funds, which may not be able to afford their own data center but still require low-latency access for quotes and executing trades. Savvis says Proximity Hosting clients can connect to exchange servers within 64 microseconds.

Savvis currently operates 28 data centers globally encompassing more than 1.4 million square feet of raised floor space designed to support enterprise IT operations.